Monday, September 22, 2008

Another Oil Market Victim: David Gaffen at MarketBeat Has Succumbed to the Madness

UPDATE: BelowI suppose it was just a matter of time. After the show* he put on Friday, which got me digging through long undisturbed brain cells for "bravura", he has been reduced to this headline. I picture him laughing maniacally**:

Four at Four: Oil of Oy Vey

From MarketBeat:

It’s almost as if the oil contract itself saw the equity rallies of Thursday and Friday as a personal affront, and vowed to challenge it with its own launch. The surge in October’s crude-oil contract, which expired at the end of Monday’s session, was in part related to some kind of short squeeze, and contributed to the late-day weakness in the equity market, already predisposed to give back some of the gains last week.

The foundation those gains were built upon was unstable enough — a ban on short-selling in 799 financial stocks and the announcement of a confidence-boosting plan that does not, as of yet, amount to much more. And in the cold reality of the new week, investors found the plan wanting, seeing as how it may debase the dollar, increase federal debt, and reduce profits, among other effects. With the specifics in flux, investors were in the dark.

“I’d say that everybody is just running for the hills,” says Ron Weiner, president and CEO of RDM Financial Group in Westport, Conn. The Dow finished off by 360 points, nearly all of Friday’s rally, proving, again, that nobody knows anything***....MORE

**It happens. During the crash of '87, at around 2:45 p.m., I started giggling. I had just heard some doofus getting interviewed on the floor say "I've never seen anything like this" and I lost it.We ended down 22.6% on the DJIA. I only giggled for a minute or so. No one had ever seen anything like it, at least not since the collapse of the shekel following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. (or some equally dramatic collapse):

"Here at Masada Securities we consider ourselves a fortress of strength in these uncertain times."